Praziquantel-Solid Lipid Nanoparticles Produced by Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Extraction: Physicochemical Characterization, Release Profile, and Cytotoxicity

• Published in: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 24; no. 21; p. 3881
• Main Authors: Andrade, Luciana N, Oliveira, Daniele M L, Chaud, Marco V, Alves, Thais F R, Nery, Marcelo, da Silva, Classius F, Gonsalves, Joyce K C, Nunes, Rogéria S, Corrêa, Cristiane B, Amaral, Ricardo G, Sanchez-Lopez, Elena, Souto, Eliana B, Severino, Patrícia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 28.10.2019; MDPI
• Subjects: Bioavailability; Biocompatibility; Calorimetry; Carbon dioxide; Carbon Dioxide - chemistry; Cell Line; Cell lines; Cell Proliferation - drug effects; Chromatography, Supercritical Fluid; Cytotoxicity; Differential scanning calorimetry; Drug delivery systems; Drugs; Efficiency; Encapsulation; Fibroblasts - drug effects; fibroblasts cell line; Fourier transforms; Homogenization; Humans; Infrared analysis; Infrared spectroscopy; Lipids; Lipids - chemistry; Nanoparticles; Nanoparticles - chemistry; Oral administration; Outdoor air quality; Palmitates - chemistry; Palmitic acid; Particle size distribution; Pharmaceuticals; Phase transitions; Polydispersity; Praziquantel; Praziquantel - chemistry; Praziquantel - pharmacology; Size distribution; solid lipid nanoparticles; Solids; Solvents; supercritical fluid; Supercritical fluids; Zeta potential; praziquantel; fibroblasts cell line; supercritical fluid; solid lipid nanoparticles
• ISSN: 1420-3049; 1420-3049
• DOI: 10.3390/molecules24213881

Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) can be produced by various methods, but most of them are difficult to scale up. Supercritical fluid (SCF) is an important tool to produce micro/nanoparticles with a narrow size distribution and high encapsulation efficiency. The aim of this work was to produce cetyl palmitate SLNs using SCF to be loaded with praziquantel (PZQ) as an insoluble model drug. The mean particle size (nm), polydispersity index (PdI), zeta potential, and encapsulation efficiency (EE) were determined on the freshly prepared samples, which were also subject of Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), drug release profile, and in vitro cytotoxicity analyses. PZQ-SLN exhibited a mean size of ~25 nm, PdI ~ 0.5, zeta potential ~-28 mV, and EE 88.37%. The DSC analysis demonstrated that SCF reduced the crystallinity of cetyl palmitate and favored the loading of PZQ into the lipid matrices. No chemical interaction between the PZQ and cetyl palmitate was revealed by FTIR analysis, while the release or PZQ from SLN followed the Weibull model. PZQ-SLN showed low cytotoxicity against fibroblasts cell lines. This study demonstrates that SCF may be a suitable scale-up procedure for the production of SLN, which have shown to be an appropriate carrier for PZQ.